Suicide Watch
Quite predictably, the Taliban have threatened violent retribution for anyone who votes in the rerun of the Afghan elections. Last time they attacked polling stations and amputated the fingers of people who had voted. To underline their opposition to election, they have stepped up attacks. They began with an assault on a United Nations hostel and have killed six UN staff and seriously wounding many others.
KABUL — Taliban suicide gunmen stormed a UN hostel in Kabul Wednesday, killing six foreign staff in an assault the Islamist militia said marked the start of a bloody countdown to new Afghan elections.
Embattled President Hamid Karzai — who faces off against his rival Abdullah Abdullah in the November 7 ballot — ordered an urgent upgrade of security for international organisations after the militant rampage.
Police said a search of the UN-approved Bekhtar Guesthouse had turned up a charred, unidentified body in one of the rooms. Two security personnel were also killed, bringing the total death toll to nine.
Another nine UN staff were wounded as gunfire and explosions rang out across the city in a smart residential district near Butcher Street close to popular shopping streets favoured by Westerners.
AFP has the story. There’s more background at the New York Times.
The NYT piece quotes a police source saying they believed that the suicide-belt wearing gunmen were Pakistani. This, I think, would suggests that The Taliban have gone multi-national, or to put it another way, are consolidating as an ideological army which does not recognise established, yet arbitrary, national boundaries – not a nationalist one. This rather changes the ‘reaction to imperialism/national resistance’ spin groups like the StWC have put on the Taliban’s motivation.
BREAKING NEWS:BBC News24 is reporting that more than 50 people have been killed in explosions in a market place in north-west Pakistan. “The market mostly sells products for women, and most of the dead were reported to be women,” says the BBC.
Comments
| 28 October 2009, 10:29 am |
This rather changes the ‘reaction to imperialism/national resistance’ spin groups like the StWC have put on the Taliban’s motivation.
I don’t think this follows, as you note the local boundaries are arbitrary, and the cultural boundaries may be different – much like the Nazis being a pan German nationalist movement when Germans were split between Germany, Austria and mitteleuropa.
| 28 October 2009, 10:41 am |
“The NYT piece quotes a police source saying they believed that the suicide-belt wearing gunmen were Pakistani. This, I think, would suggests that The Taliban have gone multi-national, or to put it another way, are consolidating as an ideological army which does not recognise established, yet arbitrary, national boundaries – not a nationalist one”
you guys just don’t get it and don’t want to. What is so hard to understand? Nationalism has nothing to do with it, never did. It’s islamic fanaticism duuuh, which is trans-national, it is about dominating society with strict adherence to the Islamic faith and Sharia. To a Muslim radical, politics and theology are inseperable, they say as much openly, it is about conquering the world for Dar al Islam and political rule must follow from Islamic dictates, all civil laws are dictated to by theocratic sensibilities.
The motivations of the Taliban are insperable from the motivations of Hamas and Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood and the rest – whatever their Sunni-Shi’ite schisms – following the central teaching of Islam – jihad against the infidel and the drive for the supremacism of Islam, including against their own kind who they believe have compromised and watered down on Sharia and Islamic teachings in general.
| 28 October 2009, 10:43 am |
To clarify you may as well write the following :
Muslim fanatics (the Taliban) have gone multi-national, or to put it another way, are consolidating a Musim Jihad army ( an ideological army) which does not recognise national boundaries.
Well a Jihad army in principle is not going to recognise national armies now is it? Sigh.
| 28 October 2009, 10:47 am |
It’s just struck me how little Muslim ulema have been doing to stem the tide of suicide attacks and encourage Afghanis to participate in the elections, as imperfect as they are. For instance, we’re always hearing from those who make it their business to write about political Islam, such as John Esposito, how mainstream, moderate and influential scholars such al-Qaradawi are. Well, al-Qaradawi has written about the necessity of elections and democracy at length, so if he and his fellow travellers (including the many Ahl-e Hadith ulema based in the UK) REALLY cared about the Afghan people, their fellow Muslims – part of the Ummah – they’d be speaking up and arranging tours and meetings. I appreciate that al-Qaradawi in particular might not carry much weight in Afghanistan…but he must know scholars that do given he heads the IUMS. The same goes double for UK scholars – instead of LOSING influence as the frankly useless David Milliband would like us to do, the UK should be taking the lead in Af-Pak. Milliband’s Marxist roots must programme him to want us to be tied to the millstone that is the EU quangocracy.
| 28 October 2009, 10:52 am |
Sorry I meant to write a Muslim Jihad army, in principle is not going to recognise national BOUNDARIES now, is it?
| 28 October 2009, 11:07 am |
What Stuart said, in essence.
| 28 October 2009, 11:46 am |
In the warped mind of a socialist, these deaths are all the West’s fault, you know, because the West has been trying to impinge unnatural Western values on them, like, oh, I don’t know, not being a bunch of recidivist savages?
| 28 October 2009, 12:15 pm |
In the warped mind of a socialist, these deaths are all the West’s fault, you know, because the West has been trying to impinge unnatural Western values on them,
I am a socialist, and I think that’s bollocks Greg. My warped mind puts it down to a bunch of fascistic theocratic death cultists intent on destroying the values that I share with conservatives in the west, and freedom loving people in the countries they operate in, including probably some of the poor sods they have killed today.
| 28 October 2009, 12:23 pm |
Greg should have ’some socialists’ or some ’self-styled socialists’ or some such.
| 28 October 2009, 1:47 pm |
My warped mind puts it down to a bunch of fascistic theocratic death cultists intent on destroying the values that I share with conservatives in the west
Well then you’re not a proper socialist like those in the SWP then who think that it’s better for brownies to kill other brownies than for anything resembling imperialism or whatever their excuse de jour is for explaining away this massacre.
| 28 October 2009, 2:44 pm |
In the warped mind of a socialist, these deaths are all the West’s fault, you know, because the West has been trying to impinge unnatural Western values on them,
The problem with this analysis is that many on the American right wing are saying the same thing.
Bring back the neocons.
| 28 October 2009, 4:57 pm |
Haven’t bothered to check the NYT or AFP stories, but here’s another lovely side of the story from the Montreal Gazette:
Taliban use kids in combat roles
NATO troops wary of firing on children
By MATTHEW FISHER, Canwest News ServiceOctober 26, 2009
A 12-year-old boy caught in the act Friday as he put a homemade bomb under a road in the volatile Zhari District grabbed a baby as a human shield to protect himself from attack from the United States helicopter that spotted him.
The incident, in an area where U.S. forces operate under Canadian command, appears to be part of a Taliban strategy to use youngsters as lookouts or human shields, or to carry out attacks, because they know NATO rules of engagement make troops extremely reluctant to open fire in such situations.
There have been 29 incidents in which children have helped commit attacks or otherwise abetted the Taliban in Afghanistan’s four southern provinces since March, according to a document provided by the Canadian military. Eight of the incidents have taken place this month.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/Taliban+kids+combat+roles/2144424/story.html
| 28 October 2009, 6:10 pm |
You sick imperialist scum. I’ve been trying to get CCTV footage of the UN hostel attack so I can enjoy the gory deaths of the Zionist stormtroopers who have invaded Afghanistan. I’ve drooled so much at the thought of it I’ve had to call a plumber.
The next target *must* be the traitorous women and girls of Afghanistan, who are still defying the resistance and going to school. Fucking school! Neo-con bitches. Stop the War!
| 28 October 2009, 7:13 pm |
Latest news, death toll is around 100 people killed in Peshawar, mostly women and kids, and 200 or more wounded.
Hillary says the bombers are cowards.
That’s the least of it:(
| 28 October 2009, 7:35 pm |
“In the warped mind of a socialist …” Greg 11.46 a.m.
Is my mind warped? How?
I see the StW demonstrator’s in London last Sunday have had another swift response.
| 28 October 2009, 8:09 pm |
Larkers, surely the latest bombing is a tribute to the marchers. The bombers are ‘writing their names in the firmament’ with an anti-imperialist pyrotechnic display. It’s all part of the ‘glorious arc of resistance’.
If I were the author of the above quotations, I would be sincerely wondering about what fate had in store for me. However, I suspect that the subhuman grotesque responsible really couldn’t give a shit.
| 28 October 2009, 9:01 pm |
Latest news, death toll is around 100 people killed in Peshawar, mostly women and kids, and 200 or more wounded.
Those were imperialist collaborator women and children, even collaborator babies. That just proves how depraved the west has become using babies as collaborators!
Death to the imperialist lackies!
| 29 October 2009, 3:34 pm |
How come in all the analyses of the troubles in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, one never reads of where the means to inflict such devastation on so regular a basis comes from? The afghan taliban get their dosh from the drug trade, presumably, but the others? Surely it must cost something awful to wreak this kind of mayhem? Are there still terrorist patrons in the Gulf and Saudi bloody fucking Arabia? Are there state sponsors of terrorism whom the USA and allies are sucking up to instead of neutralising?
| 29 October 2009, 3:41 pm |
As usual, Taliban proving they are scum. Unfortunately, political considerations will probably prevent a systemic and united response to Taliban atrocities, for a number of reasons:
If the last elections hadn’t been so fraudy there wouldn’t be a need for a re-run. As it is, it’s down to the two biggest cheats to compete for the dubious title ‘the biggest cheat in Afghanistan’.
At the same time, the NYT is also reporting that President Karzai’s brother – widely-acknowledged as the premier drug baron in Afghanistan – has also been on the CIA payroll. This will do little to dispel the notion that Karzai is in fact the mayor of a DC suburb …
The taliban was always a product of the madrassahs in Pakistan so I wouldn’t read too much into the attackers being Pakistani.